Working the Woods

Forest-based jobs are in a period of rapid and radical change in the Northern Rocky Mountains. Shifts in technologies, corporate structures, markets, supplies, and economies all contribute to the changing character of forest-dependent jobs and the communities that support forest-dependent workers. Old practices are fading away and time-honed skills are at risk of being lost or forgotten; new working methods, machines, and occupations are being created. A uniquely American culture is changing completely. Picture Tomorrow's Working the Woods will photographically document forest-dependent workers and their culture as they are today, in flux between old ways and new. The project will create an historic archive--to be deposited in museums of history and in academic collections--permanently preserving a glimpse of our present before the forces of change, and the rush of a new century, erase it forever.

Horse loggers Jim and Eric Lotan, Bitterroot Valley, Montana

In addition to establishing the visual record, the touring exhibition of Working the Woods will provide a forum for discussion on how changes can benefit forest-dependent workers, the resource-dependent communities they call home, and how the changes will affect the forests themselves. Bringing people with divergent views of the future together around a celebration of forest-dependent workers and their culture will provide a positive atmosphere for understanding the impact of change.

Working the Woods will honor our past, celebrate our present, and provide a hopeful vision of our future. We honor our past through the project's base concept, originally undertaken a century ago; to photographically record the occupations and operating methods of forest-dependent workers. We celebrate the men and women who work in the woods today, documenting their activities and culture for future study and reflection. Finally, Working the Woods provides a hopeful vision of the future; looking at enterprises that are sustainable for ourselves, our communities, and for the land from which we take our livelihood